Well I am now in Bloomington, MN. My presentation isn't until tomorrow so I have time to practice it a bit.

Last night's dinner was very Primal, but not terribly "Green" I am afraid. I went to the grocery store and they have recently brought in a line of grass fed meats. I have a freezer full, but I kinda wanted to try it, so I picked up a couple of rib eyes and some asparagus on sale, went home and cooked it up. SWMBO came home with Boy and said, "asparagus? That's way out of season!". I realized that she was right. I dug the label out of the trash and it came to my table via Peru! Yeesh! I looked at the package for the steak and the beef was from Australia!! Sigh... Mighty big carbon footprint there! Sorry future generations, I'll be more careful in the future...

If it makes any difference, it was delicious. I like steak raw, I mean rare. SWMBO likes hers ruined, I mean medium. I cooked them both rare and she nibbled around the edges, like she always does for the burnt pieces, which left the center portion for meeeee! I had it this am for breakfast. It was good even cold.

We both enjoyed the flavor, I think I prefer the stuff we get from our usual farm on this side of the planet.

Whew! Been a busy couple of days... Ive done very well with eating, basically I am fasting through breakfast and lunch (a good thing because the provided food at the conference is the usual SAD conference swill. Dinner is typically at some steakhouse for some meat and veggies.

Last night it was Manny's Steak House (one of the very best!). The meal was however cut short by my Sales Manager suddenly getting sick to his stomach. I managed to gobble down my 20 oz dry aged New York strip before we had to leave. But had only one drink (yay!) and didn't have to get tempted by dessert. I did try the roasted bone marrow (served on toast...sigh) appetizer. It was delicious.

Just a weird evening because we had to leave so abruptly. Sales manager was fine in the morning (a bit embarrassed). It actually worked out well for me because I wasn't tempted by too much food, drink or dessert. But I felt bad for him.

Today is a total fast, I don't want to eat the crap here. My sales manager leaves before dinner and there are no good restaurants near the hotel. I leave early in the AM tomorrow, so will eat again tomorrow dinner. It will work out to a 48 hour fast. I'm so happy to have that tool in my toolbox! :-)

Lol, well my gluttony knows no bounds, there is a famous steakhouse in Chicago called the Chop House. They will cook you a porterhouse steak up to 72 oz! That one I had to share with a buddy... We finished it, along with two sides, a big dessert, bread and a lot of liquor. Of course I was a younger man then, and nearly 300 lbs.

One of the things that has changed about me since going on PB is that I am much more in tune with my appetite and my body in general. I enjoy the sensation of being a bit hungry and I can recognize being pleasantly satiated. In my big fat days I never got hungry (because I never stopped eating) and I missed lower levels of satiety and only recognized being uncomfortably full.

It is a big change for me. The 20 oz steak was too much food, but I had fasted since dinner the night before and was pretty hungry by the time I ate it. So even after all that food I wasn't uncomfortable, but was pretty full.

Now it is approaching dinner time (the next day) and I'm not ravenous. I'll probably see if I can find something small, if not I'll wait until tomorrow.

Home again, home again, jiggity-jog. Back from Minneapolis. Soon off to Boy's parent-teacher conference. Still fasting, I'll have a light dinner tonight and resume normal (healthy) eating on the morrow.

Last nights dinner was a stir fry of pork, onions, and eggplant with curry spices ginger and lime. It was good. I mixed a big spoonful of plain, full-fat yogurt in with mine. I had a moderate portion given that I'd been fasting for 48 hrs. I feel fine this morning, not ravenous, not really any different than I ever feel to be honest.

Just for fun I weighed myself this AM upon rising and I was 240.5 lbs. I'll gain some back after the fast, but still that's a lot of weight to lose. My weigh-in day is Wednesday, by then the water loss should be more stable for a clearer picture.

Of course I was challenged upon returning home, SWMBO and Boy are going to an open house at the parents of one of his buddies at school who just moved, She agreed to bring some snacks and bought three dozen cider-donuts and a bunch of the cutest looking chocolate cake lollipops. They are little round cakes, maybe a bit larger than a golf ball dipped in dark chocolate, on a stick. They are beautiful.

What struck me about all of this cakey stuff is that in the past I'd have been all over it. But I looked at it, acknowledged to myself that it did look delicious and then realized, I didn't want any of it. I felt that was sort of a triumph. How different things were three months ago.

Today will be a normal eating day, eggs for breakfast, I'll probably make the trek over to Trader Joe's in Milford to see what's there (I've never been) maybe I'll hunt there for lunch and dinner? Well I'll see what turns up.

Well I was somewhat underwhelmed by Trader Joe's. Near as I could tell there was little or no grass fed beef. Lots of "natural" and "organic" but not labeled grass fed or pastured. Some of the meats had come from a long way away too. Also true of the vegetables. Not much locavore stuff there. I picked up some canned wild salmon and boneless sardines (packed in oil). it seemed like their focus was on pretty produce (not all organic) and bakery products along with their own branded prepared foods as well as lot and lots of sweets and snacks of a decidedly non-Primal nature.

It's a nice enough store but the cost to my soul of having to drive across the Quinnipiac River Bridge and into Orange then onto the post road is not worth the good that I might derive from shopping there regularly.

There's a Whole Foods one more town toward NYC that I'll try next. I'm not really sure what I am looking for, but it wasn't at TJs

Oh, a two egg omelet, cooked in butter for breakfast, and for lunch two Applegate's Grass Fed, all beef, nitrite-free franks and an avocado. Eat moar fat indeed!

Sounds like you have definitively turned a corner in your relationship with food: a very good corner. My niece makes those chocolate cake pops too. Very cute indeed. And that was an out-and-out triumph, not a sort-of triumph. To look at something, know it is delicious, and not feel emotionally compelled to scarf it down is a wonderful place to be.

I never would have thought of combining those ingredients in a stir fry. Hmm, I have an eggplant in the fridge...

We discovered marinated eggplants a few years ago when I took a chance on something new at the local Italian grocery. We were immediately smitten. Since going primal, I realized they were preserved in canola oil but managed to find another brand that uses sunflower oil. Saved. We get the hot kind with pepper flakes too, and they make a really mean addition to a salad and even some stir fry type things.

I had a 5 oz. filet mignon the other evening, LOL! To be fair, I could have eaten more, especially since I had eaten very lightly earlier in the day, and had only salad and veggies with it. But I certainly didn't walk away hungry. Steak is becoming a favourite fallback position in restaurants these days. It's usually grilled and accompanied by salad and/or veggies. It's easy to ask for extra veggies instead of a potato. AND I've never been particularly skilled at cooking them myself, so it's a treat to have them done by someone who knows what they're doing. Chicken and fish are good in restaurants too, but I do much better with them at home, so it's not as special.

I imagine people are starting to take notice of your weight loss at this point.

Judg- Yes, people are beginning to mention it, but like I said in your journal, I've gone up and down the scale pretty regularly so the people who are close to me have seen this before. Once I get into the 230s it will be beyond my usual range.

So I'm back at work and things seem calmer here. It was good to get away last week.

I don't travel again until the end of October (back to Minneapolis) so I can focus on eating properly, and gasp, maybe some exercise! I'll likely walk today at lunch. I'm feeling good!!